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I knew that the makers of Dredd got the feel of the comic book, 2000 AD, right when its square-jawed authority, Judge Dredd, pulled out his lawgiver gun. It was set to Hot Shot, its heat-seeking mode that Dredd uses when he wants to eliminate fleeing perps. Sweet. They also captured the worn-to-the-bone look of Mega-City One, a future megalopolis that has more in common with New York City during its Fort Apache: The Bronx days than the cyberpunk future of Blade Runner. These, and many other good decisions, made Dredd an excellent interpretation of 2000 AD—and a movie worth seeing.

2000 AD is a weekly British comic book, a serialized anthology of many strips, of which Judge Dredd is just one; Judge Dredd, however, appears in every issue. The premise is the same in the comic book as the film: In the future, Mega-City One has urban-sprawled its way across the East Coast of America, covering the area from Boston to Washington DC. Outside of Mega-City One is the Cursed Earth, a.k.a. the rest of the United States, post nuclear holocaust. Judges are also the police, who are also the jury and executioner of criminals.

Dredd (played to perfection by Karl Urban) is one of the judges who patrol Mega-City One, where the latest crime spree comes courtesy of a new drug, Slo-Mo...a substance that lets a user experience life in slow time. Dredd is reluctantly partnered with rookie Cassandra Anderson, a judge-school washout given a second chance because of her powerful psychic ability.

Dredd must evaluate Anderson on his latest mission, to follow up on a crime at the Peach Trees complex (or in Mega-City lingo, “block”), one of many 200-story high Mega-City blocks. These complexes are large enough to house shopping centers and doctors’ offices. This particular block is a slum, one where we can see urban decay take place in real time.

The crime? Someone has skinned three people alive and tossed their bodies over a very tall balcony. And it’s up to Dredd and Anderson to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice.

There’s no mystery here. The crime, as well as the Slo-Mo drug, has been engineered by Ma-Ma (Lena Headey), a prostitute-turned-drug lord, who is as cunning as she is vicious. So when Dredd and Anderson rope in one of Ma-Ma’s henchmen, she locks down the entire complex. No one is allowed in or out until Dredd and Anderson are dead.

So now our heroes have another mission: Take out Ma-Ma before they’re taken out first.

I liked Dredd a lot, because there were so many aspects to like. Olivia Thirlby absolutely nailed the part of rookie Judge Anderson. Although she’s pretty, I never once got the sense that Thirlby was hired as eye candy. Her Anderson was smart—and smart enough to be scared. She was also compassionate, and at the same time, she was nobody’s victim. Like Dejah Thoris from John Carter, Anderson was someone a female audience can admire, and Thirlby deserves praise for her portrayal.

As for Karl Urban, he was everything Dredd should be: tough, monosyllabic, inflexible. At one point, he gave a panhandler a chance to make himself scarce for the crime of vagrancy, which was almost un-Dredd-ful. But when Dredd saw him again, he had no problems trying to haul the him in…despite force-marching a murderer alongside him.

Then there was Lena Headey, who we know from her turn as the beautiful yet evil Queen Cersei in Game of Thrones. Here, Headey takes a less restrained approach to evil, not by over-the-top cackling but with a semi-permanent sneer of contempt. We didn’t learn much about Ma-Ma in this movie, which is a shame, but we can infer from Headey’s performance that her sneer was well-deserved.

A shout-out to Domhnall Gleeson, who plays a fearful techie under Ma-Ma’s sinister control.